Recap

I really have been neglecting you, haven't I. I'm very sorry about that. I think it's because my life is full of people now, so I rarely feel the need to reach out to the internet.

It all changed rather abruptly; I moved in with a friend from uni and his housemates, and suddenly it was as if I'd pushed off downhill in a shopping trolley. Sometimes the road steepens and sometimes it levels out, sometimes the road is especially bumpy, but I love the ride. And extended metaphors.

There's a lot of things I can't write about for privacy reasons. This blog is connected to my real identity and pseudonyms wouldn't protect the anonymity of anyone who knows me and my my friends, so to a certain extent I've had to curtail my desire to write about my experiences.

Let's see, what shape is my life right now...
I work in retail, in a job with great customers. It doesn't earn me much because it's only around two shifts a week. I'm also working as a volunteer for a Cardiff-based publishing company! I've mentioned that, I'm sure, but it's great and exciting and scary and stressful all at once.
Every week we have Drunken Sunday, where loads of our friends come over and we talk, drink, laugh and generally make merry. Drunkenness entirely optional, of course. Sometimes I'm in the middle of everything, flirting outrageously and loving the attention, and sometimes I sit in the corner and just smile because I feel so lucky to be there.

I am, you know. Very lucky. My friends are passionate, interesting, talented people, and easy on the eye to boot! Truth be told, sometimes I feel unworthy. The ol' self-esteem is kind of at an ebb right now. So it goes. I've gained a bit of weight over the past year due to not cycling any more (some helpful person put Ben's 5-digit lock on my bike, so it needs some trial-and-error codebreaking and an awful lot of TLC before I take it back out on the road). It shouldn't matter, and it's not like I think I'm ugly, but every time I see my body I'm disappointed and low. Such a shame. With a bit more confidence, I'd be having a lot more fun!

I am having fun though. Trying new things, going on adventures... On Monday morning (after two hours' sleep and a Drunken Sunday), I went up Garth mountain with my friends. Admittedly I was, er, bringing up the rear - as I say, I'm not in great shape at the best of times - but I made it up eventually and thoroughly enjoyed the whole day. And the night was just magical. It's rare to feel that close to a group of people.

I hope you're all well, and again, I'm sorry for the rather lacklustre attempts at blogging lately. You deserve better. I'll try to up my game!

Love,
A x

Found on Flick #10

Solitary, originally uploaded by philputnam.

So, so beautiful.

Yesterday on my way home from university, it had rained all day and the hot sun made clouds of steam come billowing off the pavements.

There was a huge puddle across the road under the bridge, and as cars went through they caused waves that ebbed and flowed like tides against the tunnel's side.

Ben rolled up his trousers and walked through. I ran, splashing happily, and shouting BEN BEN BEN IT'S AN ADVENTURE as I went.

Good day.

Nellie the Elephant

I'm rereading Unseen Academicals at the moment, by Terry Pratchett. The main character, Nutt, is obsessed with having Worth. He creates things, and he learns, and he helps, because he needs to be worthy. I understand how he feels.

I restarted my twitter account today. It was complicated - I had to change my username and details and delete that account, then start a new one with my original information. It was a bit of a snap decision, but I decided that I've let it matter to me far too much. Twitter doesn't matter, not really.

I'm relieved that I've been able to let go of that obsession with rank. I no longer care how many people read my blog, to be honest, since the only important thing for me was to write it. I wanted to prove that I could keep it up, and I've done that, by my standards.

I'm hoping that, once I've finished uni for the summer, I'll be able to spend the summer doing worthwhile things. Not spending all day on twitter; not reading dozens of blogs; but learning things, and doing things, and meeting people. That's what really matters to me. I want to practice playing the ukulele more, and I want to get better at calligraphy, and I want to read and write more. I know I say these things fairly often, but that's because it's good to remind yourself where you want to be heading once in a while.

And above all, I want to be ready for the adventures when they happen. A couple of weeks ago (I intended to write more about this, but the time has passed), I went to the beach. My friends asked if I fancied going. I was at Gav's, but dressed for adventure: jeans, trainers, everything I need in my rucksack; so I said yes, and we went.

I splashed about in rock pools, went paddling, sat on rocks, climbed into a cave, found spiral fossils embedded in the rock floor, and had maybe the best day I've had for many years. Because I was ready for adventure.
It's all very well to wait for these things to happen, but I think it's time I started doing random scary things again. Goodbye to the circus of internet drama, hello to making the most of my free time. Fingers crossed.

Life, love, laughter and the lurgy

Well well well. Three holes in the ground.

It's been a fairly busy few days; I went up to Cardiff again. It felt like forever since we'd seen each other, so it was wonderful to be back in his arms. Unfortunately, he got ill a day or so in. A poorly tummy, so no close cuddles, and a split lip, so no kisses... but there are a million ways of telling someone you love them (here I reluctantly include tickle attacks *grumpy face*).

I travelled up on Thursday (having completed an essay a day early to do so - unprecedented!), met Gav with some sushi, and left him to work. He came home for a bit and went out for some music-related fun while I went for a walk around the lake while the sun set. It was absolutely beautiful! I've got some photos up on my Flickr (see the link on the left).





We went to the wedding of an old friend of his, which was great. I like his mates. We left the reception early because Gav was ill (I accidentally wandered off with Rem's camera in my bag, had to go back!), in fact I got pretty worried about him the next day. Y'see last time he had stomach cramps this bad it was when I was first getting to know him. It caused him absolute agony, so I was stressing out flapping my little hands and making high pitched noises and generally being of no use whatsoever! At least this time I could do something.

When we got back to Cardiff, I tried to help him out by going shopping and cleaning up a bit. We went round to Ben's on Monday, there was music and food and a gorgeous cat. I drank enough (not much, I never drink very much) to become fascinated with spinning a yellow badge... badges are ace. Can't think of many things more fun, except maybe balloons!

There was absolutely beautiful sunshine today, which made the parting a little easier. It's mad how reluctant I was to leave. The sooner I move to Cardiff the better!

A dinner party in a car park

Yesterday, walking back from university, I was greeted with the sight of a group of people, dressed up very nicely, having a dinner party in the middle of a car park. They invited me to join them, so I did. They gave me lemonade and apologised that the pizza wasn't there yet. They asked me about myself; who I am, where I'm going. There's something nicely concise about explaining yourself in thirty seconds, as if you're left with a better idea of things than when you started.

They recited a traditional Celtic toast for me to celebrate my coming move to Cardiff.

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again,
may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Plymouth is a place of hills and uneven roads, cracked pavements and slippery slabs.
Wind enlivens me like nothing else, almost convincing me that I could fly if I tried.
I long for the summer, for the warmth and joy of a sunny day.
I have noticed recently more than ever the soft, earthy smell of freshly-rained on ground.
And nothing, nothing in this world, makes me happier, happy to the point of tears, happy to distraction and beyond all reason, than the feeling of being in God's hand.

It was a strange event, them sitting there in their elegant outfits, me in my jumper and jeans. But there's something so right about seizing the moment. May we all learn the courage to do so more often.

Life continues

I saw some reverse graffiti for the first time yesterday! I wrote about it a while ago.


I still think it's way cool.

Been an ok few days; Gavin is home safe from his adventures, thank goodness, so I'm not a widow or owt! I've been chasing through my university transfer, and I've got an interview at UWIC on Friday the 7th which is super-convenient because I was gonna be in Cardiff that weekend anyway. (Hopefully we're gonna go to the Bristol Beatbox championship heats!) I've promised myself a bottle of Baileys when I'm certain that I'm transferring.

Last night I dreamed of my family for the third night in a row. My dream recall really has improved lately!

Don't forget it's Mother's Day this Sunday. A favour from me to you.

Interesting thing of the day: GreenMetropolis. Heaven for the bookish types among us!

Dreams

I am now a contributor to "A Dreamer's Dream Diary", and I've just written this post about all my mad dreams last night. please tell me what on earth they mean!

Today's been interesting, I was woken by a phone call from my boy saying that he was going hill-walking / climbing in Scotland for five days, so he might be incommunicado for that long. I'm so proud of him!

Then at 11 I went into university to see for myself if I had a lecture on today. Yes, I could have checked without getting out of bed, but I'd quite like to not get too lazy to move. I wandered around taking multiple photos of stickers (there are SO MANY stickers in Plymouth!), met up with Luke (fellow dream blogger), and came home.

7 things I approve of

I have been tagged by the boy! It is now my sworn duty as a blogger to perpetrate this meme, because if I don't they'll take my crayons. It's true.

Fortunately I've been feeling quite positive lately, so here we go! These are my seven things!

1) God. An obvious answer, usually, but lately I've been struggling. Fortunately, however big and scary and beyond my understanding He is, He's still there and still awesome and still loves me in all my pantsness, thank Him for that!

2) Strawberry splits. Ice lollies with ice cream in, what genius invented these... and then had the brainwave at selling 20 for £2 at the co-op?! I've been offering them to anyone who stands still long enough, which made my housemates happy, which made me happy. Yay for strawberry splits.

3) SPRING!! Any day now, I swear it!! The days are getting longer and daffodils are getting ready to bloom the second it warms up a little. It makes me happy, and fills me with hope, hence the positive mood... I definitely approve of spring.

4) Cardiff. I may live in Plymouth but Cardiff is my home. It's where the heart is and all that, so wish me luck / pray for me regarding this transfer! Going up there again this weekend to get my hair cut and go swimming and eat sushi and watch rugby and have cuddles. how can you NOT approve of a place that has all that, when I do absolutely eff-all in Plymouth all week!

5) Gmail. If you don't have it, get it. The spam filter is superb, the layout is ideal, the tagging and archiving and searching is an INFINITE improvement on outlook express and its folder system. I'll also add to this, iGoogle. I can check my gmail and the news and my hotmail and the weather and such all on my homepage, which given how often I need Google itself, gets used fairly regularly.

6) Adventures!! Oh man it's been so long since I've been on an adventure, I might have forgotten how! Back home I used to go for a walk in the woods at full moon in the middle of the night with my friends. Or I'd climb a cliff in high-heeled boots. Or we'd catch the bus out to the middle of nowhere and walk for an hour down a long road with the stars spread out above us like glitter. I miss adventures.
My boy's gearing up for an epic one :) I'm so proud!

7) My diary. Yes, I've started keeping a diary again for the first time in over a year. Sorry guys, I just need to write some things you can't read! ;) It's a beautiful one, not sold in England, I bought it in a charity shop for £3.50 and I loooove it.

So, in the fine tradition of meme-spreading, I tag: djchallis and Ben!

Interesting thing of the day: bunny game!